Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of trends in the level of knife crime in a) the East of England, b) Norfolk and c) Norwich; and what steps she is taking to tackle knife crime in i) Norfolk and ii) Norwich.

Knife-enabled offences in Norfolk have reduced by 5% and knife-enabled offences in the East of England have reduced by 3% since the start of this parliament in June 2024 to March 2026.

To support the effective targeting of resources within local areas, the Home Office has developed an innovative hyperlocal crime mapping tool to visualise where crime concentrates across England and Wales and accurately identify crime hotspots, including for Knife Crime.

We have recently provided these tools to Police Forces, including Norfolk to help inform delivery planning, collaboration with local partners and targeted intervention activities. This would allow a granular view of knife crime hotspots, including for Norwich.

This year, the Home Office is investing over £450,000 in grant funding to the Norfolk Community Safety Partnership to support their implementation of the Serious Violence Duty. The funding supports a range of early intervention and prevention programmes, for example targeted mentoring interventions for young people in Norwich and Kings Lynn at risk of being drawn into violent crime.

In 2026-27, Norfolk Police will receive up to £250.3 million of funding, an increase of up to £9.8 million compared to 2025-26, which equates to a 4.1% cash increase and 2% real terms increase.

Additionally, we are supporting forces to increase the overall number of neighbourhood policing personnel, with a total expected growth of 4,750 neighbourhood officers by the end of March 2027 compared to March 2025. As at 31 March 2026, Norfolk Constabulary had grown by 39 FTE neighbourhood officers since March 2025.